Chapter 3

The Age of the Universe, Part 1

The Bible implicitly teaches Why is it that so many scientists choose to ignore the recorded history of the Bible, and instead believe in a vastly inflated age of the universe?

The age of the universe is a point of
dispute between the Bible and the opinion
of the majority of astronomers today. The
Bible implicitly teaches us about the age of
the universe. In other words, it gives us sufficient information so that we can compute
approximately how long ago God created the
universe. The Bible teaches that the entire
universe was created in six earth-rotation
days (Exodus 20:11
). Furthermore, the Bible
provides the age differences between parents
and descendants1 when listing certain
genealogies. From these kinds of biblical
references, we know that the elapsed time
between Adam and the birth of Christ was
roughly 4,000 years. From other historical
records, we know that Christ was born
roughly 2,000 years ago. Since Adam was
created on the sixth day of the creation week,
we can conclude that the earth, the entire
universe, and everything in it were created
approximately 6,000 years ago.

Many people today would scoff at this
claim. After all, most geology textbooks,
astronomy textbooks, and the majority of
schools and universities teach that the earth is
4.5 billion years old, and that the universe is
even older, but what is the basis for the secular
belief in billions of years? Why is it that so
many scientists choose to ignore the recorded
history of the Bible, and instead believe in a
vastly inflated age of the universe?

Circular reasoning

One answer is circular
reasoning: many scientists believe the world is
old because they believe most other scientists
think the world is old. Although a given scientist
may be well aware of evidence that is not
consistent with long ages, it is very tempting
to dismiss such evidence because, “How
could all those other scientists really
be wrong?” How many of those
other scientists believe in long
ages simply because they also
think that other scientists do?
A majority opinion can become
self-sustaining through circular
reasoning; people believe because
other people believe. It is surprising that many
people do not realize the inconsistency here.

Many times, the circular reasoning can
be cross-disciplinary. A geologist may feel
assured that the earth is billions of years old
since most astronomers believe that the solar
system is billions of years old. However,
an astronomer may feel confident that the
solar system is billions of years old since the
majority of geologists accept this for the age
of the earth. Of course, the majority opinion
can be wrong. In fact, many scientific
discoveries have gone against the majority.
Nonetheless, the psychological pressure to
agree with the majority is a very powerful
and well-documented phenomenon.2

The evolution connection

It is noteworthy that most (though not
all) of the scientists who believe in billions
of years also believe in particles-to-people
evolution. Evolution requires vast ages.
It couldn’t possibly have happened on a
mere 6,000-year time scale, because such
profound changes would then have to be
happening so rapidly that we would not
only see massive transformations all around
us, we would have historical records of
many examples. Yet, we have never seen
life evolve from non-life, nor have we ever
seen a living organism evolve into another
kind with greater specified complexity.
These “uphill” changes just aren’t observed;
indeed, they seem to be impossible.

The imaginary vast ages are invoked
to make these seemingly miraculous leaps
feasible. As George Wald has stated, “Time
is in fact the hero of the plot. . . . Given
so much time, the ‘impossible’ becomes
possible, the possible probable, and the
probable virtually certain. One has only to
wait; time itself performs the miracles.”3
The insurmountable obstacles to evolution
are simply swept under the rug of vast ages.

The addition of the billions of years
does not actually solve the problems with
molecules-to-man evolution. These problems
have been addressed in detail on our
website at answersingenesis.org and in the
materials available there, and so there is no
need to elaborate in this astronomy book.
The point here is simply that evolution
requires vast ages. Hence, this is an example
of how worldviews can affect a person’s
interpretation of evidence. Evolutionists
must believe in vast ages. Their worldview
bias does not allow them to consider the
possibility that the universe could be only
thousands of years old, regardless of what
recorded history teaches, and regardless of
any scientific evidence. People who reject
molecules-to-man evolution would do well
to remember this before jumping on board
with the vast ages.

The big-bang connection

Conceptual artwork of several areas of inflation (domes) in the early Universe

I have found that most people who
believe in billions of years also believe in the
“big-bang theory.” The big bang is a secular
speculation about the origin of the universe;
it is an alternative to the Bible. The big bang
attempts to explain the origin of the universe
without God. It can be considered the cosmic
equivalent of particles-to-people evolution.
Sadly, a lot of Christians have bought into the
idea of the big bang, without realizing that
it is based on the anti-biblical philosophy of
naturalism (there is no God, nature is all there
is or ever was). Furthermore, they are generally
not aware that the big bang contradicts
the Bible on a number of points and has many
scientific problems as well.

According to the big bang idea, the universe
is nearly 14 billion years old; whereas
the Bible indicates that the universe is about
6,000 years old. For those who claim to
believe the Bible, this difference alone should
be sufficient reason to reject the big bang.
It is wrong about the age of the universe by
a factor of over two million! But it is not
just a problem of time scale; the Bible gives
a different order of events than the current
secular opinion. The big bang / naturalistic
view teaches that stars formed before the
earth, fish came about before fruit trees,
and the sun came about long before plants.
However, the Bible teaches the exact reverse—that
the earth came before stars, fruit
trees came before fish, and the plants were
created before the sun.

Future of the Universe

The big bang is a story about the alleged
past, but it is also a story about the alleged
future. According to the currently favored
version of the big bang, the universe will
continue to expand indefinitely and grow
colder. Usable energy will become increasingly
scarce, and will eventually cease altogether,
at which point the universe will die a
“heat death.” At this point, no “heat” will be
left, so the universe will have a temperature
close to absolute zero everywhere. No life
will be possible at that point since no usable
energy will exist.

Heat death is a rather
bleak scenario, and quite
different from the future
the Bible teaches. Scripture
indicates that the Lord
will return in the future in
judgment. The paradise lost
in Genesis will become a
paradise restored. There will
be no “heat death,” nor any
death of humans or animals,
since the Curse will be
no more. The new earth will remain perfect in
the Lord’s presence forever. (See diagram this
page.) Many Christians are inconsistent; they
accept what the big bang says about the past
(instead of the Bible), but reject what it says
about the future (in favor of the Bible).

The Assumptions of Naturalism and Uniformitarianism

A belief in naturalism and uniformitarianism
can cause a person to make a vastly
inflated estimate of the age of the earth and
universe. Recall that naturalism is the belief
that nothing exists outside of nature. In this
view, the universe and everything in it came
about by the same kinds of processes observed
within the universe. Naturalism is, of
course, an unbiblical concept since the Bible
makes it clear that God created the universe
supernaturally. The problems with naturalism
will be discussed in greater detail in
the next chapter. Naturalism often leads
to exaggerated age estimates when applied
to supernaturally created things.

As an example of this, consider the
first man. Adam was created as an adult—a fully grown man. Suppose that we
were asked to guess the age of Adam on
the seventh day, only 24 hours after God
created him. If we incorrectly assumed
that Adam was not supernaturally created
but that instead he came about the
same way people come about today, then
we would derive an age that is far too
old. A naturalist might guess that the
one-day-old Adam was about 30 years
old by incorrectly assuming that he grew to
adulthood by the same process that other
people do today. Naturalism leads to an age
estimate for Adam that is 10,000 times too
old, but the universe was also supernaturally
created. A person who denies this would
likely conclude an age that is many times
older than the true age.

A belief in uniformitarianism can also
lead to severe overestimates of age. Uniformitarianism
is the idea that most things in
the world today (mountains and canyons,
for example) were formed at about the same
(i.e., uniform) rates that we see operating in
the world today. People who hold to uniformitarianism
would assume that radioactive
decay has always occurred at the same rate,
that canyons have (generally) been eroded
at the same rate as today, and that mountains
have been uplifted at the same average
rate as today. They would certainly deny a
worldwide flood (Gen. 6:8) since it would
alter these rates dramatically. Uniformitarianism
can be summed up by the phrase
“the present is the key to the past.”4

However, both naturalism and
uniformitarianism are merely philosophical
assumptions. They are both
anti-biblical since the Bible teaches
both a supernatural creation and a
worldwide flood. Moreover, naturalism
and uniformitarianism can lead to contradictory
conclusions (as we will show)
which brings into question the reliability of
those assumptions.

The distant starlight problem

One of the most common objections to
a “young universe” is often called the “distant
starlight problem.” There are galaxies
in the universe that are incredibly far away.
These distances are so extreme that even
light would take billions of years to travel
from these galaxies to the earth. Yet, we do
see these galaxies; this indicates that the
light has traveled from there to here.
Since this process is supposed to take billions
of years, the universe must be at least
billions of years old—much older than the
biblical time scale. It is argued that distant
starlight therefore supports the big-bang
story of origins.

There are actually several different
natural mechanisms that God might have
used to get the starlight here in thousands
of years. These have been published in TJ [now Journal of Creation] and other places and so we will not repeat them here [for more information, see “Does Distant Starlight Prove the Universe Is Old?”]. The point here is to show that
the objection itself is vacuous. The argument
that distant starlight disproves the
biblical account of creation and supports an
old “big-bang” universe is based on faulty
reasoning.

First, notice that the distant starlight
argument is based on the fallacious assumptions
of naturalism and uniformitarianism.
It assumes that the light got here entirely by
natural means, and traveled at a constant
rate, over a constant distance, with time
also being constant. Of course, it is possible
that God may indeed have used “natural
means” to get the light here. It may also
be that some of the things assumed to be
constant in time (such as the speed of light)
are indeed constant, but is there any logical
reason why we would automatically know
beforehand that these must be the case?
Remember that God created the lights in
the sky to give light upon the earth. This
happened during the creation week where
God was creating in a supernatural way.

The evolutionist insists that if we cannot
show a naturalistic mechanism for a
particular event of the creation week (like
distant starlight), then the Bible cannot be
trusted. This is an unrealistic “heads I win,
tails you lose” sort of argument. Since many
of the events that happened during the
creation week were supernatural in essence,
it is irrational to demand a naturalistic explanation
for them. It is ridiculous to argue
that a supernatural explanation is wrong
because it cannot be explained by natural
causes. This would be circular reasoning.
Now, it is perfectly fine to ask the question,
“Did God use natural means to get
the starlight from galaxies to earth? And
if so, what is the mechanism?” However,
if no natural mechanism is apparent, this
cannot be a legitimate criticism against
supernatural creation anymore than a
lack of a natural mechanism for Christ’s
resurrection could invalidate that event.

Light travel-time: a problem for the big bang

There is another fatal flaw in using a
light travel-time argument like distant starlight
to reject the Bible in favor of the big
bang. Such an argument is subtly self-refuting.
This is because the big bang also has a
light travel-time problem! In the big-bang
model, light is required to travel a distance
much greater than should be possible within
the big bang’s own time frame of about
14 billion years. This serious difficulty for the
big bang is called the “horizon problem.”

Attempts at compromise

The belief in billions of years has a
stranglehold on our culture today—even
within the church. Many professing Christians
have been taken in by the fallacious distant
starlight argument or other eisegetical6 claims
involving anti-biblical assumptions. As a result,
many Christians have compromised; they
have attempted to “add” the billions of years
to the Bible. One of the most common methods
of trying to believe both the Bible and
the billions of years is called the “day age”
position. In this view, the days of creation
were not actually days, but rather were vast
ages—many millions of years each. According
to the day-age idea, God created over six
long periods of time.

It is important to point out that even
if the day-age position were true, it would
not bring the biblical account into alignment
with the secular story of origins since the
order of events is different between the two.
Recall that the big bang / naturalism view
teaches that stars existed long before fruit
trees which came after fish. The Bible teaches
that fish were made on day 5 after the stars
which were made on day 4, and after the
trees which were made on day 3—regardless
of how long the days were.

Day-age followers point out that the
Hebrew word for day (yom) does not always
indicate a “day” in the ordinary sense, but
can sometimes mean an unspecified period
of time. In certain contexts, “day” can refer
to a longer period of time, but not in the
context of the days of
creation. Similarly, our
English word “day”
can mean an unspecified period of time in
certain contexts like
“back in grandfather’s
day. . . .” However, it
would not mean an
unspecified period of
time in other contexts
such as “five days ago,
the third day, day then
night, morning of the day, evening of
the day, the evening and morning.”
Clearly, in the preceding phrases the
word “day” must mean an ordinary day
from context—not a period of time.

The Hebrew language also obeys
grammatical rules, and as with English,
the meaning of a word is always determined
by its context. The Hebrew word
for day means an ordinary day (and is
never translated as “time”) when in any
of the following contexts:

When combined with an ordinal (list) number (“the first day, the third day, etc.”) day means an ordinary day—not a period of time.

When associated with the word “morning,” such as “There was morning that day,” day means an ordinary day—not a period of time.

When associated with the word “evening,” such as “There was evening that day,” day means an ordinary day—not a period of time.

When evening and morning occur together, such as “There was evening and morning” (even if the word “day” is not present), this constitutes an ordinary day—not a nonspecific period of time.

When contrasted with “night,” such as “There was night then day,” the word day means an ordinary day—not a period of time.

In Genesis chapter 1, we see all of
these contextual indicators used for the days
of creation. The days of creation must be
ordinary days from context; they cannot be
long periods of time because context does not
permit this. It would be wrong to try and read
“day” to mean “a period of time” in Genesis
1, when the context clearly precludes such a
meaning; such an error is called an unwarranted
expansion of an expanded semantic
field. The day-age idea is not logically sound;
it is simply an unsuccessful attempt to make
the Bible compatible with anti-biblical notions.7

Ultimately, the Bible teaches that God
created in six days and the secular opinion is
that the universe evolved over billions of years.
Each of us must decide whether we are going
to trust the secular opinions of human beings,
or the clear teaching of the Bible. As we saw
in the last chapter, the Bible has always been
correct when it touches upon astronomy.

It is important to remember that we are at
just another point in history. Yes, people today
will scoff at and ridicule a belief in a “young
universe.” Then again, many of those same
people will ridicule a belief in Jesus Christ being the one true God, or even the very belief in a Creator. The Bible has always been
vindicated in the past. So there is no reason to
cave in to mere peer pressure today.

The evidence confirms a young universe

Even now, the scientific evidence is very
consistent with what the Bible teaches about
the age of the universe. Why then do many
secular scientists believe that the evidence
points to a multi-billion-year-old universe?
People who believe in the big bang generally
interpret the evidence according to the big
bang (sometimes without even realizing it).
In other words, they simply assume that the
big bang is true and they interpret the evidence
to match their beliefs. We all interpret
the evidence in light of our worldview; there
is no getting around it. However, the Bible
can also be used to interpret the evidence.
Since the Bible records the true history of
the universe, we will see that it makes a lot
more sense of the evidence than the big
bang does. Let us now look at some facts
about the universe. We will see that the
evidence is consistent with 6,000 years, but
doesn’t make as much sense if we hold to
the big bang.

Of course, big-bang supporters can
always reinterpret the evidence by adding on
extra assumptions, so, these facts that follow
are not intended to “prove” that the Bible is
right about the age of the universe. The
Bible is right in all matters because
it is the Word of God. However,
when we understand the scientific
evidence, we will find that it agrees
with what the Bible teaches. The
evidence is certainly consistent with a
“young” (roughly 6,000-year-old) universe.

The Horizon Problem

In the big-bang model, the universe
begins in an infinitely small state called
a singularity, which then rapidly expands.
According to the big-bang model, when
the universe was still very small it would
have developed different temperatures in
different locations. Let’s suppose that point A is
hot and point B is cold. Today, the universe
has expanded and points A and B are now
widely separated.

However, the universe has an extremely
uniform temperature at great distance—beyond the farthest known galaxies. In
other words, points A and B have almost
exactly the same temperature today. We
know this because we see electromagnetic
radiation coming from all directions in
space in the form of microwaves. This is
called the “cosmic microwave background”
(CMB). The frequencies of radiation have
a characteristic temperature of 2.7 K and
are extremely uniform in all directions.
The temperature deviates by only one
part in 105.

The problem is this: how did points A
and B come to be the same temperature?
They can only do this by exchanging
energy. There are many systems where this
happens; consider an ice cube placed in
hot coffee. The ice heats up and the coffee
cools down by exchanging energy. Likewise,
point A can give energy to point B
in the form of electromagnetic radiation
(light). (This is the fastest way of transferring
energy since nothing can travel
faster than light.) However, using the big bang
supporters’ own assumptions (such
as uniformitarianism and naturalism), there
has not been enough time in 14 billion
years to get light from A to B; they are
too far apart. This is a light travel-time
problem—and a very serious one. After
all, A and B have almost the same temperature
today, and so must have exchanged
light multiple times.

Big-bang supporters have proposed
a number of conjectures which attempt
to solve the big bang’s light travel-time
problem. One of the most popular is
called “inflation.” In “inflationary” models,
the universe has two expansion rates;
a normal rate and a fast “inflation” rate.
The universe begins with the “normal”
rate (which is actually quite rapid, but is
slow by comparison to the next phase).
Then it enters the inflation phase, where
the universe expands much more rapidly.
At a later time, the universe goes back
to the normal rate. This all happens early
on, long before stars and galaxies form.

The inflation model allows points A
and B to exchange energy (during the
first normal expansion) and to then be
pushed apart during the inflation phase
to the enormous distances at which they
are located today, but the inflation model
amounts to nothing more than storytelling,
with no supporting evidence at
all. It is merely a speculation designed to
align the big bang to conflicting observations.
Moreover, inflation adds an additional
set of problems and difficulties to
the big-bang model, such as what would
cause such inflation, and how to turn it off
in a graceful fashion. An increasing number
of secular astrophysicists are rejecting inflation
for these reasons and others. Clearly,
the horizon problem remains a serious light
travel-time problem for the big bang.

The critic may suggest that the big
bang is a better explanation of origins than
the Bible since biblical creation has a light
travel-time problem—distant starlight.
Such an argument is not rational since the
big bang has a light travel-time problem
of its own. If both models have the same
problem in essence,5 then that problem
cannot be used to support one model over
the other. Therefore, distant starlight cannot
be used to dismiss the Bible in favor of the
big bang.

Taking Back Astronomy

Dr. Lisle communicates the truths of creation and the fallacies of evolution with authority and enthusiasm. In this richly illustrated book, Lisle debunks the most widely accepted teachings about the idea of evolution. Readers are given solid answers to many questions, including the speed of light, the big bang, extraterrestrials, the reliability of the Bible regarding astronomy, and more.

Many secular scientists are increasingly
acknowledging the importance of catastrophic
events in earth’s history.

The details, of course, differ. The big
bang does not have a problem with distant
starlight as such. Then again, biblical creation
does not have a horizon problem. (The CMB
does not need to start with different temperatures
in a creationist cosmogony.) However,
both problems are the same in essence: how
to get light to travel a greater distance than
seems possible in the time allowed.

Eisegesis means reading things into the
biblical text, as opposed to exegesis, understanding
what the text is actually teaching.

The day-age position has been thoroughly
refuted in the book Refuting Compromise
by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati (Green Forest,
AR: Master Books, 2004).

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Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry, dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively. We focus on providing answers to questions about the Bible—particularly the book of Genesis—regarding key issues such as creation, evolution, science, and the age of the earth.